I'm thinking of getting a '96 Outback. It has the 2.5L engine that I understand has a concern about blown head gaskets. Can somebody tell me what exactly is the concern? What causes the problem? Is it the gasket itself? Can this be avoided by simply not overheating the car, or replacing the gasket? Or is it a random problem that cannot be prevented? And how common is this particular issue?

not to scare you off from a good car, but they do leak, you cant predict them. some are fine, and some just blow every 50k miles or so. you can get the new version of headgasket. its supposed to get rid of the failure rate, by a good percentage. the part # for the new gaskets is 11044aa610. it should look like 4 thin layers of steel. they leak internally, so the hot exhaust gases leak into the cooling system and overheat the motor. depending on the mileage of the car, and how recently/or if, the HG's have been changed you could be okay. but watch out, people know about this problem, and some shady people get rid of the car just before they know the HG's are goin out, or on the way out. you can always throw in a EJ22 in it and call it good for a 100k miles.

 

 

~Josh~

Thanks Josh. How big of a job is a head gasket R & R on this engine? Is it a reasonable job for a weekend warrior DIY mechanic with a decent amount of experience?

Thanks Josh. How big of a job is a head gasket R & R on this engine? Is it a reasonable job for a weekend warrior DIY mechanic with a decent amount of experience?

 

Take a read on Skip's website.....if this doesn't scare you away, then you are fit for the DIY route.

http://home.comcast.net/~skipnospam/Head_gasket_replacement.html

 

I recently took out the entire motor for my 2.2L in January for it's head gasket mess. It was very straightforward to remove/replace. But I did a longblock replacement that spared me the gory details of messing with the valves, etc.